Chapter 6 - The Encounter at the Diner
By Friday evening, the temperature had dropped into the teens, and a new layer of powdery white snow was beginning to drift across the sidewalks of South State Street, softening the harsh angles of the brick tenements and the rusted iron fire escapes.
Vincent Moretti sat in the exact same corner booth at the Royal Diner.
He didn't have a manila envelope on the table this time. He had a cup of black coffee and a small white porcelain plate containing a slice of cherry pie that looked like it had been sitting under a glass dome since the previous Thursday. He hadn't touched the pie. He was watching the steam rise from his coffee cup and listening to the low rattle of the neon sign outside as the wind made it swing on its iron bracket.
The door swung open with a sharp, jangling ring of the brass bell, and a gust of freezing air swept across the linoleum floor.
Sophie walked in first, her yellow raincoat unzipped, her school bag slung over one shoulder by a single canvas strap. She was shaking the melting snow from her boots when she stopped dead near the door.
Her eyes—dark, wide, and clear—fixed on the corner booth.
Vincent didn't look away. He raised his coffee cup two inches off the formica in a silent, acknowledgment of their previous meeting.
Sophie didn't run, and she didn't hide behind her mother this time. She walked slowly across the checkerboard floor, her wet boots squeaking softly with every step, until she was standing three feet from the table. Her mother, Claire, came out from behind the counter a second later with a rag in her hand, her face tightening into an expression of immediate, defensive alarm as she saw who was sitting in the corner.
"Sophie," Claire said, her voice sharp as she reached out to grab her daughter's shoulder. "Come away from there."
"It's alright, Mrs. Miller," Vincent said. His voice was calm, pitched at a level that didn't carry past the second booth. "Join me."
Claire didn't move. She stood between Vincent and her daughter like a soldier forming a one-woman barricade against an invading army. "We don't want any trouble, Mr... whatever your name is. We're just trying to get through the week."
"I know," Vincent said. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, flat square of heavy cardstock—not an envelope, not a bank bond, just a small admission ticket to the Lincoln Park Zoo printed in green ink. He laid it gently on the table beside his coffee cup. "Sister Mary Katherine mentioned that Sophie hasn't seen the polar bears yet this winter."
Claire looked from the ticket to Vincent’s face, her breath catching in her throat. "What kind of game are you playing? Who are you?"
"My name is Vincent," he said simply. "And I'm a man who hates being in debt."
"We didn't ask you for anything," Claire said, her voice trembling slightly with a mixture of fear and stubborn pride. "We gave the money back because it wasn't ours. That's what people do. You don't have to buy us off."
"I'm not buying you off," Vincent said, standing up from the booth. He towered over both of them, his broad shoulders filling the narrow aisle between the tables, but his expression was completely devoid of the menace that usually made grown men step off the sidewalk when he passed. "I'm settling an account. There’s a difference."
He looked down at Sophie, who was staring up at him with her head tilted to one side, her dark hair falling across her forehead.
May you like
"The zoo is open on Saturday mornings," Vincent said softly. "The bears are most active around ten before the crowds get in. Tell your mother to bring you."
Before Claire could find her voice to tell him no—before she could reach out and pull Sophie back toward the kitchen doors—Vincent laid a twenty-dollar bill on the table to pay for the untouched cherry pie, turned on his heel, and walked out into the freezing Chicago night.
